I hadn’t tried to kill her since she was a child. And despite every vicious thought, I wouldn’t try again.
The tightening in my chest wasn’t pain but something near it. As if a long-dead part of me dared to stir. Her fate and mine were intertwined. The end would come. The world would fall. My destiny would be fulfilled.
She refused to say goodbye to her loved ones. I’d warned her. But Kara never listened. She never had.
Still, I’d learned something valuable from living as a shadow.
She feared more than pain. More than my tail.
There were deeper things to use. Things that would sink into her heart like claws.
Chapter Eight
Melinda Thymes
Melanie clutched a hand to her chest, eyes flicking down as if expecting it to fade again. She and Sebastian had started showing signs of fading right after Grim. Proof that reality was closing in on the Reapers.
The door to the family room burst open with a loud thwack against the wall as Sebastian and August stormed in. Melanie stood quickly and rushed toward them.
My vision blurred, as it often did when a prophecy took hold.
A golden garden spiraled into view, ribboning together like silk threads weaving a tapestry. My heart tightened, yet my eyes softened at the sight.
Home.
It had been a long time since I’d seen Heaven. But why was I seeing it now?
Then I spotted the golden well at the garden’s center, and understanding struck. Whatever I was witnessing was the past. The scrying glass hadn’t looked like a well in centuries. It hadlong since taken the form of a mirror, now hidden away in a sacred shrine.
My eyes widened as Lucifer appeared.
Oh, how beautiful he had been back then.
Gold suited him in ways that felt unfair. His robe fluttered around his long legs as he approached the well on light steps. Like the other angels, his skin glowed with celestial gilding. But something about him always stood apart, even when we all appeared the same.
An energy clung to him, pulsing with something ancient and unknowable.
I frowned as he paused and leaned over the well, gazing down into the golden waters within.
We watched the humans through the well. Back then, Adam and Eve were the first.
Just as quickly as the memory came, it turned static to my senses. I broke out of the vision and nearly stumbled as the room around me came back into focus.
Melanie stood in front of me on unsteady legs. My dress swooshed around my ankles as I hurried after her, ready to catch the mother if she collapsed.
I tried to give Melanie my full attention, but my head spun with thoughts of Lucifer. What had I been meant to see in the vision?
“Kitty?” Melanie’s voice was tight and high-pitched. When no one else entered behind August and Sebastian, her shoulders deflated. August gave a silent shake of his head, and Melanie crumbled to the floor, utterly spent.
“Why would the Devil hurt her when he’s so close to getting what he wants?” she whispered. “Grim is gone. It seems pointless for him to do this.”
“Her essence is intact. The Devil hasn’t done anything yet,” August said.
“But what happens when Kitty’s mortal?” Melanie screeched, panic swelling in her voice.
I knelt beside her and touched her shoulder. “Kitty was mortal when he took her, and she’s still alive.”
“That’s worse,” Sebastian cut in, rubbing his chin before locking eyes with me. “We don’t know what he’s planning. And we can’t enter Hell.”
